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I think much like how we're still figuring out how to use and manage social media to minimize the downsides and maximize its utility, we're gonna have to do the

I think much like how we're still figuring out how to use and manage social media to minimize the downsides and maximize its utility, we're gonna have to do the same with AI. I find it incredibly powerful for certain things and incredibly frustrating for others. Begging the AI to one shot some project feels like the wrong way to use it, it's better as a scalpel. Or as a learning device, or a more advanced rubber ducky.

shortrounddev2 1y ago
I never allow ai to write code, certainly not unsupervised. I like to write some code and then have claude check my work. Not just for bugs, but for architecture and style as well.
- b_e_n_t_o_n 1y ago
  I let it write boilerplate, or other low impact stuff like html/css. It worked nicely converting Svelte components from Svelte 4 to 5 for example. And AI autocomplete has been a genuine productivity win although not without the occasional subtle bug. But I can't imagine trusting it for an entire codebase. If you're letting the AI write your code you're not thinking about it deeply enough to critique it imo. Which is fine for CSS or whatever but not most code. It's such a great tool for learning, double checking your work, figuring out syntax or console commands, writing one-off bash scripts etc.
  - shortrounddev2 1y ago
    I stopped using copilot because it kept writing really bad c++. It's great at python and Javascript. This was a year or so ago so maybe its better now
    - b_e_n_t_o_n 1y ago
      I used it to learn C++ but that was for basic stuff. Even I could tell when it started to go off the rails. I wonder if some of the disconnect between the AI coding fans and skeptics is just the language they're writing.
    - leptons 1y ago
      Nope, I write Javascript every day and none of the AI coding assistants is really that good. It churns out more crap than gold.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
bogzz 1y ago
But muh cashing in on the tulip mania.
AlecSchueler 1y ago
> we're still figuring out how to use and manage social media to minimize the downsides and maximize its utility Considering the state of today's social media landscape and people's relationship to it, this fills me with dread.
- b_e_n_t_o_n 1y ago
  I think we're starting to have a conversation about what healthy social media usage looks like and its place in life. Maybe it's just my algorithm but I see a lot of content about moderation and a shift back towards being genuine. I fully understand the irony here btw. Hopefully it doesn't take 2 decades of AI usage to have that conversation tho.
  - AlecSchueler 1y ago
    > Maybe it's just my algorithm but I see a lot of content about moderation I'm not sure if this is supposed to be ironic but it gave me a good chuckle nonetheless. There's also a lot of talk about drinking more moderately down at my local bar.
    - b_e_n_t_o_n 1y ago
      To be fair, those seem like natural places to have these conversations. Fwiw I'm seeing a lot of people on social media talking about drinking less too. So I had to unfollow them.
rollcat 1y ago
IMHO the root of the issue is that "AI" is being anthropomorphised, or oversold as actually "intelligent". If there's anything I've learned about software, "intelligent" usually means "we've thrown a lot of intelligent people at the problem, and made the solution even more complicated". Machine learning is not software, but probably should be approached as such. It's a program that takes some input and transforms it into some output. But I suppose if society really cared about physical or mental health, we wouldn't have had cigarettes or slot machines.
- escapecharacter 1y ago
  A helpful, and snarky, critique of the majestic rhetoric around “cloud computing” was to mentally replace “cloud” with “someone else’s computer”. When thinking through a claim of what AI can do, you can do the same. “AI” -> “just some guy”. If that doesn’t feel fair, try “AI” -> “some well-read, eager-to-please intern”.
  - fragmede 1y ago
    Was all that snark, the cloud to ass" string replacement firefox extension; was it actually helpful? We're still trying to sell the masses (and ourselves) on the benefits of self-hosting, and the cost of cloud hosting vs on-prem has never really been answered. Don't get me wrong, a trawl through my comments here will find I don't always manage to hold my tongue when I'm feeling snarky, so I very much understand the desire, but at the end of the day, what has that actually helped? My friends who were Unix and Linux sysadmins who didn't manage to upskill are still out of a job when their employers moved the servers they were babysitting into the cloud, and my data is still swimming around somewhere in Facebook and Google's data centers. Sure let's call the AI names, behind its back and to its face if we're feeling particularly bold, but is that actually going to amount to anything?

shortrounddev2 1y ago

I never allow ai to write code, certainly not unsupervised. I like to write some code and then have claude check my work. Not just for bugs, but for architecture and style as well.

b_e_n_t_o_n 1y ago
I let it write boilerplate, or other low impact stuff like html/css. It worked nicely converting Svelte components from Svelte 4 to 5 for example. And AI autocomplete has been a genuine productivity win although not without the occasional subtle bug. But I can't imagine trusting it for an entire codebase. If you're letting the AI write your code you're not thinking about it deeply enough to critique it imo. Which is fine for CSS or whatever but not most code. It's such a great tool for learning, double checking your work, figuring out syntax or console commands, writing one-off bash scripts etc.
- shortrounddev2 1y ago
  I stopped using copilot because it kept writing really bad c++. It's great at python and Javascript. This was a year or so ago so maybe its better now
  - b_e_n_t_o_n 1y ago
    I used it to learn C++ but that was for basic stuff. Even I could tell when it started to go off the rails. I wonder if some of the disconnect between the AI coding fans and skeptics is just the language they're writing.
  - leptons 1y ago
    Nope, I write Javascript every day and none of the AI coding assistants is really that good. It churns out more crap than gold.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

bogzz 1y ago

But muh cashing in on the tulip mania.

AlecSchueler 1y ago

> we're still figuring out how to use and manage social media to minimize the downsides and maximize its utility Considering the state of today's social media landscape and people's relationship to it, this fills me with dread.

b_e_n_t_o_n 1y ago
I think we're starting to have a conversation about what healthy social media usage looks like and its place in life. Maybe it's just my algorithm but I see a lot of content about moderation and a shift back towards being genuine. I fully understand the irony here btw. Hopefully it doesn't take 2 decades of AI usage to have that conversation tho.
- AlecSchueler 1y ago
  > Maybe it's just my algorithm but I see a lot of content about moderation I'm not sure if this is supposed to be ironic but it gave me a good chuckle nonetheless. There's also a lot of talk about drinking more moderately down at my local bar.
  - b_e_n_t_o_n 1y ago
    To be fair, those seem like natural places to have these conversations. Fwiw I'm seeing a lot of people on social media talking about drinking less too. So I had to unfollow them.

rollcat 1y ago

IMHO the root of the issue is that "AI" is being anthropomorphised, or oversold as actually "intelligent". If there's anything I've learned about software, "intelligent" usually means "we've thrown a lot of intelligent people at the problem, and made the solution even more complicated". Machine learning is not software, but probably should be approached as such. It's a program that takes some input and transforms it into some output. But I suppose if society really cared about physical or mental health, we wouldn't have had cigarettes or slot machines.

escapecharacter 1y ago
A helpful, and snarky, critique of the majestic rhetoric around “cloud computing” was to mentally replace “cloud” with “someone else’s computer”. When thinking through a claim of what AI can do, you can do the same. “AI” -> “just some guy”. If that doesn’t feel fair, try “AI” -> “some well-read, eager-to-please intern”.
- fragmede 1y ago
  Was all that snark, the cloud to ass" string replacement firefox extension; was it actually helpful? We're still trying to sell the masses (and ourselves) on the benefits of self-hosting, and the cost of cloud hosting vs on-prem has never really been answered. Don't get me wrong, a trawl through my comments here will find I don't always manage to hold my tongue when I'm feeling snarky, so I very much understand the desire, but at the end of the day, what has that actually helped? My friends who were Unix and Linux sysadmins who didn't manage to upskill are still out of a job when their employers moved the servers they were babysitting into the cloud, and my data is still swimming around somewhere in Facebook and Google's data centers. Sure let's call the AI names, behind its back and to its face if we're feeling particularly bold, but is that actually going to amount to anything?